The prison blog of an Orwellian unperson. As shown on National Geographic Channel's Banged Up/Locked Up Abroad episode Raving Arizona.

25 Nov 04

Bald Headed Fred

My new cellmate’s crime spree came to an abrupt end in 1995. He had been robbing drug dealers, which he considered his specialty, but his final job went askew.

BHF’s last robbery had commenced as normal. He subdued the occupants of an apartment at gunpoint, and proceeded to torture the drug dealer to get him to cough up the combination to the safe. BHF’s preferred method of torture that day involved knocking the man unconscious by hitting him in the head with a ball-peen hammer, a bloody process that broke the victim’s nose and split his head open. The victim’s hands were then raised above his head and attached to a shower with duct tape. When the victim regained consciousness, BHF played naughts and crosses (tic-tac-toe) on the fellows chest and face with a six-inch blade. After learning the safe’s combination, BHF stuffed his duffel bag with $10,000 in cash and $50,000 worth of crystal methamphetamine He was about to go on his way when some of the victim’s roommates returned home. They saw the bloodstained crime scene, fled and called the police. The police already had the place surrounded because BHF’s getaway driver was an informant, and a sting operation had been set up.

BHF hopped a fence and landed in someone's backyard. A lady holding a poodle opened a French window and BHF heard, “Easy boy, easy boy.” Fearing that the police helicopter would shine its light on him at any minute, BHF snapped into action.“Freeze, police! In the house now!” he yelled, pointing his .357 Magnum at the lady's face.He escorted her into the living room where he found a scantily clad and disheveled young couple, who had ventured down stairs to investigate the disturbance.“Freeze muthafuckas, on the ground!” BHF said. A large German Shepherd remained docile while BHF locked all of the windows and doors, and turned the lights off.“Anyone else here?” BHF asked.“No.”“You calm down, go and put some clothes on and come straight back,” he said to the young lady dressed only in her underwear.“I’ve done killed nine people tonight, let’s not make that twelve.” It wasn’t long before BHF’s picture was broadcast on the TV and the hostages learned the true nature of his crimes.“I’m not gonna rob you or hurt you. Just don’t do anythin’ stupid, and when it gets light outside I’m gone,” he told them.The police knocked on the front door, but after their knocks went unanswered, they shone their torches in the backyard and departed. After a few hours of hovering the helicopter left.

The hostages and BHF bonded whilst drinking beers and smoking marijuana together. Eight hours later Fred decided that it was time to leave.“I’m gonna take yer truck. Gimme yer keys. Get whatever you want out of it and I’ll call you and let you know where I leave it, so you can quickly get it back.”The young man obliged and BHF kept his promise.

Two days later, after many news broadcasts had advertised BHF as a wanted man, someone tipped off the authorities that BHF was at a friend’s house. The house was surrounded by a SWAT team, a helicopter, an armoured vehicle, and news crews. BHF barricaded himself in the garage and while the cameras were broadcasting live, a police negotiator threw BHF a black box containing a phone which Fred grabbed with a rake.“Hello.”“Today’s a good day to die. What do you think?” Fred said.“I’m here to help you get out. Have you got any hostages?”“Yeah,” Fred lied, worried that they would storm the garage if they knew he was solo.“We’re not coming in. Is there anything that you need?”“I wanna pizza!”“What else?”“A helicopter,” Fred said.“You’ve watched too many movies,” the negotiator said, and laughed.

One of BHF’s female friends, Special K, saw the standoff on her TV and rushed to the scene. She convinced the negotiator that she could talk BHF out of the garage without anyone getting harmed.“Hi, honey,” Special K greeted BHF.“Hi!”“Are you gonna give up and come out?”“I’ve got dope and smokes, I’m OK.”“You’re big-time surrounded. Look down the street.”BHF peeped at the armoured vehicle that had positioned itself so that its battering ram could knock down the garage door.“They’re comin’ in to get yer, honey. They promise that no shots will be fired and I’ll get to talk to you if you come out right now.”

With his hands in the air, BHF surrendered. After being pummeled by the police, he was allowed to talk to Special K.

BHF’s next violent crime occurred at Alhambra, the prison processing facility fornewly-sentenced inmates. BHF had been housed in a fourteen-man cell, and one of the occupants was a convicted child molester. BHF presided over a kangaroo court with his new cellmates and it was decided that the "cho-mo" should be stabbed and tortured.

I read BHF’s police reports which describe what happened next. The sex offender was tied up and battered for “a good five minutes”. “They stuffed strips of cloth in his mouth…prior to the stabbings to see how the muffle worked.” His boxer shorts were pulled down and he was mocked for having “a little one”. The sex offender stated, “At that point was where I got stabbed in the stomach several times”. BHF actually stabbed him eleven times and then held a shank to the eyeball of a witness who stated, “He put it at the corner of my eye like he was gonna shove it in there and he says, ya know, he says you say anything, I’m gonna take this and shove it into your eye and pop your eye out. He said then we’re gunna eat it.”

For stabbing the child molester, BHF received an additional 30 months on top of the fifteen-year sentence for the kidnappings, home invasions and aggravated assaults. He feels that the 30 months was a small price to pay for stabbing and torturing someone convicted of molesting children. He is wondering how you feel about what he did to the sex offender.

25 comments:

Hi Jon, let your new celly know that no one admires cho-mos but don't you think the justice system should deal with their crimes. This type of violence is barbaric and must surely make the prison environment more dangerous for everyone.Jayne

hmmmm.Well it is tempting to think that "justice" should be given to those who delight in victimizing children.It certainly seems the courts don`t succeed in doing that particularly well.But........I think mental torture is more effective. And no extra time added to a prison sentence for that either.

I am appalled by both the child molester and by BHF'sactions. When people take the law into their ownhands, lawlessness will inevitably ensue. And whenlawlessness breaks out, society breaks down.None of us is completely innocent of all wrongdoing.Vigilantism is not the answer even though it may be asource of short-term satisfaction. MG

Hello Jon,While reading your ghastly descriptions of life, if you want to call it that, in the US prison system I got an eerie feeling that I had read similar descriptions like yours before. The filth, brutality, insanity, lack of basic competent medical care and the general feeling of hopelessness are reminiscent of reading descriptions of the concentration camp inmates brutalized by the Nazis in World War 2. If one just substituted the places, dates and names of you postings for the all too familiar ones from wartime Europe of 60 plus years ago, you would be writing historical descriptions of the worst crime ever committed against humanity. So where is the public outrage for what is presently happening in the prison system in this country? If the only things that changed in your present prison environment where the guards became German SS men and the prisoners became Jews, Poles, Russians etc. everyone would be condemning and asking the question just how can a supposedly civilizised, cultured and highly educated society do this to other human beings?

Merry Christmas anyway and a success filled New Year 2005!Luke BrackettMarietta, Georgia

I'm stunned at some of the comments here. There's noroom for discourse at all, what BHF did was WRONG!Kiddie fiddlers are very sad examples of humanity.Imagine if THAT was the only way you could get off.Physical mutilation by prison inmates should not betheir fate, let alone anyone elses.Whittler

Far as I can tell, most child offenders are sad bastards who can't hack it with chicks their own age (anyone got an opinion?) Stabbing them a few times may look like a solution but frankly you're more likely to save kids by taking the chomoes in hand and introducing them to the wonders of adult porn. Added bonuses: no extra jail time and you don't give anyone else the idea that stabbing people (for example Fred himself, if he ever has competition for top dog) is a good approach to problems. Thanks for writing a great blog. You've given me an intriguing view of the criminal justice system and an interest in Yoga :) Alex

"Child molestation" is a term that has been used to include many things, but but I have close to zero sympathy for anybody who commits true sexual abuse of a child. Actually popping the man's eye out would have been a bit too grisly for my taste, but I'd agree that BFH is the kind of man I might get friendly with. As long as he didn't try to kill me.

I don't advocate violent reprisals on sex offenders unless its the victim andfrom temporary rage. An eye 4 an eye and we all end up blind. You cannot knowthe experiences of said mollestor and the only way to break the cycle is withrehabilitation and treatment.

Torture is wrong, not only from the moral approach, but from a political and sociological one.

People who use pain to take advantage of situations not only affects their victim but themselves too.

Imagine, you have a mind ready to produce suffering to others, that means that you cannot understand others pain, thus you have no social/ nor cultural habilities.

And most people should understand that prison is not for humans, born to be free. And no human should receive an unhuman treatment. Most of you sohuld think that if you are human and some humans are imprisoned, then you can be, at any time, imprisoned.

Alhough this post is years old I felt I had to say something. Although I fully believe that taking the law into your own hand can only end up negatively, I really want to respond to the prison-Nazi comparison.

Anyone who can even think about making that comparison has obviously never seen the vids before. To claim that our government, however much you disagree with their policies, act like Nazis is tantamount to denying it.

I want you to know that I am getting very little work done reading from your first day forward, but I just had to comment...

I would have maybe suggested a little trim for the bastard, you know, when you have kids, your view of right and wrong gets a little skewed when a child is harmed.

I do agree that violence breeds violence, and yes what he did was wrong, but something inside me wants to scream "way to go". It must be the mom in me!

I also have to admit that the first hour I was reading you I loved your wit and imagined you to have stolen money in some Ponsy scheme. Then I read that blasted article, and debated reading on as I was so angry that you came off as such a nice guy - and that innocence was not what you deserved. BUT, I decided to let fate, or your blog, take me a little further in the hopes of finding justice in wanting to read on. I am now to this post, so I am sure you know, I have found myself entranced in your writing!

I hope that when I get to present day (kind of like reading a good book, I cannot allow myself to spoil the ending), I will have evidence that you have completely reformed from your past behavior and have become a model (and free) citizen!LCNINMN

What Fred did to start with was wrong and he should be locked up for that. But what he done to the "cho mo" was certainly called for.My husband is in prison (in Australia) for assualt and I'm sure if anything ever happened to his children he would certainly take the law into his own hands and inflict as much pain as possible, 30 months extra is a small price to pay. I don't believe in violence in any way, but there is some people in this world who are misled by satan.

It's 2014 and BHF will never hear what I think but I say good man!! I was sexually abused from very early on and it finally stopped when I was 14. The bastard moved on to much younger girls in the family. I pray someone like BHF took revenge on his body for those of us that never could!!!

As a mother of two...I commend anyone to torture or kill a child molester. They have no business to live for what they do to innocent lives. Play "God" all you like because if there was one.. a God per se' then the poor child wouldn't have to suffer in the first place.